Softball bonded Helmstetter family

With a glance in any direction, Abe Helmstetter knew he had it made. At Avon Lake High School's softball field on May 30, his Monroeville team was getting photos with the program's second-straight regional championship trophy. Among those players was his youngest of four daughters, senior pitcher Veanna. Behind the fence stood his family, including his wife, Jessie, his father, Mike, and daughters Rylee and Carley — with Rylee holding 11-day-old Bram, named after his grandfather. The longtime Eagles' head coach, waiting for media interviews, held fresh-baked cookies in one hand and the regional trophy in the other. "I'd say I have it pretty good, huh? This is hard to beat," he said. It wasn't always that way, though. In his earliest coaching days with elder daughters Haven and Rylee, plenty of in-house bickering occurred. As a first-time head coach who once admitted he didn't know a lot about the sport, he also had to put out fires at home. "I said to Jessie one time, 'maybe this wasn't the smartest decision I ever made,'" Abe recalled. "But you know what? I wouldn't change it for the world now. It's something I will truly miss with V graduating." Haven (MHS 2014 graduate), Rylee ('16), Carley ('19), and Veanna ('25) anchored an unprecedented run of success in both the Firelands Conference and Huron County softball. The Division VII state championship against Portsmouth Notre Dame on June 5 marked the last time "Coach Abe" would have a daughter on his team. He coached the 2021 season without a daughter player, but Veanna, then in eighth grade, was with the team every day. "It's been great, and we work great together most of the time," Veanna said. "We've definitely learned to adjust to each other. It's been a great experience to do it with him and all my sisters before me." Pitching coach Asked whether she had moments of frustration in the years with her dad as coach, Rylee Helmstetter Gessling didn't take long to answer. "We butted heads a lot," she said. "There were definitely times when Haven and I came home from practice and decided we weren't talking to him the rest of the night." In 2016, Rylee and Carley were Eagles teammates. The main topic of frustration? "Definitely pitch calls, for sure," Carley said. "We butted heads all the time. Over everything, but definitely which pitch was being called." She noted that their mom, Jessie, often helped keep the peace among daughters and dad. "But she definitely took our side more," she said. "She put her foot down more than a few times, for sure. If we were in a bad mood and didn't want to talk to him, she'd nicely tell him to back off, and help mediate." That trend continued this season, although not so much in the final weeks of the Eagles' 27-4 journey to a second straight state runner-up finish. "We actually didn't fight at all today," Veanna happily noted after a 10-2 win over St. Paul in the May 24 district title game. "We communicated pretty well, which definitely isn't always the case." When Veanna was younger, Abe was her pitching coach. "He's done it my whole career, and he'd call pitches — but I wouldn't ever throw the ones he wanted," she said. "I'd just throw changeups the whole time. It was my favorite pitch when I was younger. But I wouldn't listen to him — and he'd get mad at me." Senior classmate Avery Rosser caught every pitch thrown in the 31 games this season for the Eagles. As a lifelong teammate of Veanna and fellow senior Taryn Tyler, Avery has seen her share of disagreements. "Coach Abe will call a risky pitch every once in a while, but V will execute it," Rosser said. "But yeah, I'd have to break them up sometimes." And that's the point where the longtime catcher would bow out. "I'd tell them, 'that's not me. You two figure it out,'" she said. Despite some disagreements, the Eagles have had great success over the years, including seven of the last 11 seasons with a Helmstetter throwing from the circle. Since 2014, which was Haven's senior season, the Eagles have compiled a 224-81 overall record, and a 122-32 mark in the Firelands Conference. They have won four conference titles and three district titles, along with regional championships and state championship game appearances in 2024 and 2025. Monroeville has seven consecutive seasons with 21-plus wins. In 14 seasons overall, Coach Abe's teams are 242-139 overall. As for the pitch-call 'discussions,' Abe admits his wife is right about the main reason those have occurred. "Jessie will tell you my girls are a lot like me," he said. "We're very similar, bull-headed competitors. We each get an idea and a plan and don't want to deviate from it. We're just a lot alike." All worth it Time often provides perspective. In each of the daughters' cases, that has proven especially true. "Looking back at it now, I really feel like I use those lessons in life every day," Rylee said. "Going to work, interacting with people every day ... I feel like I learned so much from playing softball and how Dad coached us. "Just the way he taught those lessons, they really can be used every day." Over time, Carley said she appreciated the level of honesty she could give to her dad from a player's perspective. "It was nice to be honest with him about his pitch calls, and I could talk to him on that level if I needed to," she said. After Haven and Rylee helped the Eagles become a consistent winner, the program really took off with Carley and Veanna in the circle. Monroeville broke through with a district title and a regional runner-up trophy in 2019 when Carley was a senior. She was a first-team All-Ohio pitcher, with a 54-9 record and a 1.19 ERA over her final three seasons, striking out 624 batters in that span. Veanna, who lost her sophomore season to a torn ACL, was 41-5 with a 1.70 ERA in her three seasons. She struck out 314 batters and had 67 walks. Carley saw a lot of herself in her younger sister over the past two years. "Haven set the bar, then Rylee got further on it, and I pushed it even more, and Veanna is doing the same as I did," Carley said. "I see a lot of myself in her: her facial expressions when she throws, and just the way she plays with so much heart. "I still feel that when I watch her. And also, the way she wants pitches called from her coach. It's been awesome to watch and support her at these games." Despite having the back-to-back trips to the state title game as recency bias, Veanna was quick to declare Carley the family's best pitcher. With a catch, of course. "I'm definitely not No. 1, Carley is. She was better than me," Veanna said. "This has been really fun for the whole family. But I'll give her that one. She never had a perfect game, though." On May 9, Veanna threw a seven-inning perfect game in a home win over Western Reserve. "She gave me a lot of grief over that, for sure," Carley said. "I like that she looks up to me. But I also look up to her, too. And I think she's the better pitcher." Then, hours after the perfect-game taunt, Carley wanted the record set straight: "Yeah, she's better than me, but she'll never beat my records," she said of her younger sister. Welcome to the family A week after Mother's Day, Abe and Jessie celebrated their shared May 18 birthday. The next day, Rylee and Adam Gessling became parents to baby boy Bram, the first grandchild of Abe and Jessie. His name is short for Abe's full name, Abram. "Two is company, and three is a crowd," Abe said of Bram being born a day later. "He wanted his own day." Three days later, Monroeville won a district semifinal by run-rule over South Central. On May 24, the Eagles beat St. Paul for a third time to win another district championship. Monroeville then blew past Cuyahoga Heights and Vienna Mathews by a combined 26-2 runs in a pair of games to repeat as regional champions at Avon Lake High School. The Eagles edged Sycamore Mohawk on June 4 and fell to Portsmouth Notre Dame on June 5 in the state tourney games at Akron's Firestone Stadium, finishing as Div. VII state runner-up. After Monroeville's dominant 17-1 win over Cuyahoga Heights in Avon Lake on May 28, Abe had Rylee bring baby Bram — all of nine days old — to meet the players in the team huddle near the dugout. Two days later, the newborn appeared in family photos with the regional championship trophy at home plate. "It's really exciting that we got to take him to watch them play a few times," Rylee said. "There was a chance he wouldn't have seen his grandfather coach or see his aunt pitch for the last time. So it's really rewarding to know he was born in the middle of another special tournament run." The pictures were taken with Veanna holding the trophy as she iced her shoulder. She was also shaking off a hit to her forearm by a line drive late in the game. As the photos were taken, an imprint of the softball's stitching was visible on her skin. "That was a little bit scary, I'd say," Abe said. "But it's just another reminder that I'm grateful for this. I miss it with my other three girls, and I'll miss this. "It's been great to have this sport to bridge the gap with my four daughters. We're a tight family, so just to also have those relationships with them, this sport has really helped build that. Even after getting beat 20-1 by Hillsdale (May 10), I still might be the luckiest guy in the world." Just 10 days after the state championship game, Abe spent Father&#39;s Day at home with his four daughters, sons-in-law, and baby Bram. In reflection, Abe said he thought having his team meet the new addition to the Helmstetter family was important for perspective. After decades of being 'dad' to four girls, he noted, a boy will be an adjustment. "That's something I'll have to figure out — but I know we're going to have fun with it along the way. Rylee and Adam will be great parents, and we're so happy for them," he said. "But Monroeville softball is about a family atmosphere," the coach added. "That's Monroeville in general. This is my extended family at the softball fields, and this state run was a great opportunity for them to meet the newest member of the family."